The literary portrait-lecture in the criticism of V. V. Nabokov

The article reviews the ways of realization of the portrayed writer concept in V.V. Nabokov’s literary portrait-lecture. The article states that V.V. Nabokov’s critical works devoted to the outstanding Russian writers can be considered beyond lectures having characteristic forms of a generalized scientific or popular science material, since they are directed not so much on the traditional reader reception as the perception of a specific material, but on cooperation and co-creation of the author and the reader, which is the goal of the literary portrait genre. On a material of the literary portrait "Fyodor Dostoevsky" the basic features of Nabokov's literary portrait-lecture are analyzed; put forward and substantiated the idea that the basis of Nabokov’ critical thinking was laid on his subjective view of the personality of the portrayed writer (hereinafter - the concept of the portrayed personality), to determine the main genre features of his speeches. Nabokov’s portrait hero is a man-creator, embodying the author’s idea of a non-idealized personality.